Racing Across the Globe, One Adventure at a Time!

After last week’s shoe debacle and subsequent foot pain, I was unsure of how my week would go. With a race planned for Saturday and a foot that was still aching, I figured I would take it day by day.

Monday, February 5 – 4 miles: My new insoles arrived Monday and I was able to exchange my shoes for a larger size, so even though my foot wasn’t feeling 100%, I felt confident in going for a run. I knew that the reason my foot was hurting was because of the insoles I bought at Fleet Feet. It turns out, I was right! I did 4 solid miles at 9:28 pace, which was pretty exciting after taking a week off. My foot didn’t feel any better or worse afterwards, and it didn’t hurt more than normal during.

Tuesday, February 6 – strength training: I had great intentions of running on Tuesday, but it didn’t end up working out as I planned, so I hit the gym instead. The main focus of my workout on Tuesday was squats! As in 100 of them – 10 sets of 10. Since I can’t use a barbell over my shoulders, I used a squat machine. I did 3 set of 10 at 50 pounds, 3 sets at 100 pounds, and 4 sets at 150 pounds. Nothing crazy, but I felt a nice burn!

Wednesday, February 7 – 5 miles: With my foot continuing to get better, I felt confident that I was out of the woods. Pearce and I got together on Wednesday and ended up running 5 miles at 9:36 pace. Our schedules haven’t been lining up much lately, so it was nice to finally be able to catch up! It’s so much easier to run when you have someone to talk to (at least, in my opinion).

Thursday, February 8 – 6 miles: Six sweaty lunchtime miles on Thursday at a 9:41 pace. It was on this run that I started thinking about doing my long run on Friday afternoon instead of doing the race I was signed up for on Saturday. If that sounds insane, stick with me. The forecast was calling for pouring rain the entire weekend. The race, which I did last year, is 10 miles long, and I had 14 miles on my schedule. So, I would have had to wake up early, run a race by myself in the rain, and then run another 4 miles by myself. The race entry fee was super cheap, so it was easy to convince myself to scrap it, but I figured I would see how things unfolded on Friday.

Friday, February 9 – 14 miles: I had a super busy day at work on Friday, but I was determined to get everything on my list done so that I could get out for my run. I just really did not want to wake up early and drive far to run in the rain by myself! I’m awful. I took a couple of hours of PTO in the afternoon and decided to head out for my run. It was unseasonably warm (60 and very sunny), and I ended up running a very hilly route because I was too lazy to drive to the flat trail – I know, I’m the worst. BUT! My run actually went very well, all things considered. I wasn’t super confident when I started because I missed my long run last week due to my foot, and increasing my long run from 10 miles two weeks ago to 14 miles seemed like a lot. However, I figured all I could do was try and see how it went, and if I ended up with 12, I could live with that. Well, I’m not gonna lie – I was exhausted by the end, but I did it! My overall pace was 10:15 and I’m very happy with that.

When you’re too tired to pose for a picture, you lay down.

Saturday, February 10 – strength training: I was super pleased with my decision to do my long run on Friday when I woke up to the rain, warmth, and humidity on Saturday. Yuck! It was the perfect day to hit the gym. I used a lot of different machines and also worked on my bench press a little bit. Y’all might remember that before my shoulder surgery, bench press was my favorite and I was working my way up to 135 lbs! Well, not anymore. It consistently hurts my shoulder, but it’s getting better. I was able to do 85 lbs for 3 reps. I’ll get back there eventually!

Sunday, February 11 – OFF: I was definitely ready for an off day. Gotta love that about marathon training!

Week 2 of living my “best” single parent life and…well…can someone tell AJ’s boss not to do this to me again? Especially not for two weeks? Great, thanks. Oh, and I hurt my foot this week, so everything is going GREAT. Good thing AJ is home now! My foot, on the other hand…womp womp.

Monday, January 29 – 4 miles: I don’t want to brag, but I’m like totally getting faster. I mean, the bar is admittedly low, but whatever. Pearce and I managed 4 miles this morning at 9:43 pace – our first time breaking into the 9:40s this training cycle! We’re making progress and it feels good. I may or may not have been fueled by a need to get out of the house after a tough weekend of single parenting. I spent my lunch break on Monday getting fitted for new running shoes – they stopped making my favorite HOKAs! I tried a bunch of different brands but ultimately decided on the HOKA Bondi 5s. Hopefully they will be kind to my back this training cycle!

Tuesday, January 30 – 5 miles: First run in my new shoes! I had a bit of a twinge on the side of my foot (under my ankle), but it went away after a few steps. Maybe my new shoes have a little magic in them, because this was my fastest run of the training cycling so far! I had an overall pace of 9:22 and my first mile under 9 minutes – 8:56! In fact, I had my three fastest miles of the training cycle during this run. It’s so exciting to see progress!

Fast shoes and shorts weather! Ok, just kidding, I was FREEZING and it was a poor clothing choice.

Wednesday, January 31 – strength training: WOMP WOMP. Well, my fastest run might have been my last, because I woke up this morning with an aching left foot! It’s definitely not good enough to run on, but luckily, I have a strength workout today. It hurts a good bit to walk, but it’s ok when I’m just standing. Squats were the name of the game, and even though I’m not able to put a barbell across my shoulders because of my back, I was able to use a squat machine and do some weighted work for a change. I guess I’m trying to make my butt even bigger than it already is?

Thursday, February 1 – OFF: TRIPLE WHOMP. My foot hurts so bad today that I can’t put any weight on it except for my tiptoes. After thinking about it and where it hurts (it’s now more towards the outside of my heel), I think it may be due to the new insoles I bought. The insoles I had in my old shoes were about 4 years old (I KNOW, I know), and I decided to buy new ones when I bought my shoes. In hindsight, I should have just ordered the same ones I already had, but that would have been too much work, so instead, I bought the kind they sell at Fleet Feet. NOT a good move. UGH!

Friday, February 2 – strength training: My foot is still throbbing, but I figured I could go to the gym and just keep the weight off it (i.e. no lunges or anything like that). I forced myself to do exactly the type of upper body workout I hate – a hard one – and lots of backbody and ab work. That will teach me to mess my foot up!

Saturday, February 3 – OFF: My foot is finally feeling better, but it’s definitely not good enough to run on. I am not going to run again until my new insoles (the same kind as my old ones) come on Monday, though, so I guess I’m resting. So frustrating!

Sunday, February 4 – OFF: Sigh. Hopefully my foot will be back to normal tomorrow and my new insoles will come! Oh well – if there is a good time to have a “hiccup” in a training cycle, it’s at the beginning, right?

LEAVE A COMMENT: Do you use insoles? Are your feet super sensitive to new shoes?

I lived my best single parent life this week while AJ was out of town for work. And by “my best single parent life” I mean that I tried not to drink an entire bottle of wine every single day while he was gone. I often work out in the mornings before work or in the afternoons after work, depending on who is responsible for picking up our foster son from aftercare, so being the only parent made things a little challenging this week. My workouts pretty much had to be at lunch time out of necessity, and although I didn’t work out as many days of the week this week, I did get all my “usual” workouts in (4 runs and 2 strength sessions). I also got a cortisone shot from my surgeon on Monday, so I’m hoping that will help my shoulder work out the lingering inflammation soon.

Monday, January 22 – 4 mile run: AJ didn’t leave til Monday afternoon, so I got in one last morning run with Pearce before he left. They were 4 totally unremarkable miles, but I will say that I didn’t feel quite as slow as I usually do in the mornings – perhaps because it was a good bit warmer. The overall pace was 10:12 – not bad!

Tuesday, January 23 – strength training and 5 mile run: Thanks to my gym being so close, I was able to rush over after dropping the kiddo off at school and before work. I managed to squeeze in about 45 minutes and tried to mix it up a little bit. I did a bunch of squats and deadlifts, but also added some clamshells with a band tied around my legs to work my hips. I even did some ab work, which I loathe and despise. If only it wasn’t so important for runners! At lunch, Pearce and I squeezed in 5 miles in the sunshine. I’ve been struggling on the first two miles of most runs lately, and today was no exception, but we ended up at a 9:51 pace overall and a 9:19 mile thrown in the middle!

Wednesday, January 24 – strength training: Two strength workouts in a row was not ideal, but that’s the way my schedule ended up working this week. I tried to mix the leg workouts up, so I focused more on weighted lunges and hamstring work. The hardest thing for me is to sequence the different movements in a way that makes sense (i.e., coming up with the idea to do weighted lunges and then use those weights to do bicep curls in between sets of lunges). Personal trainer, I am not, but I try!

Thursday, January 25 – 5 mile run: Brace yourselves, but I managed another run under 10 minute pace! Today’s 5 miles were at 9:52 pace with a 9:15 mile – my fastest of the training cycle. I am really starting to feel the improvements in my fitness and it is exciting! I’m not where I want to be, but it is definitely getting better.

Friday, January 26 – 10 mile run: Friday was exciting because COACH BOBBI CAME TO VISIT, YAY!! I took the day off and we did the week’s long run on the Swamp Rabbit Trail, ate lunch, and shopped. The run felt like it absolutely flew by thanks to the good company and perfect weather! We managed a 9:52 pace – first long run under 10 minute pace, which was awesome! I don’t often run on the SRT simply because I’m lazy and it is not literally right outside my front door, so this was a great change of scenery.

Love running through downtown with this lady!

Saturday, January 27 – OFF: I took the kiddo up to North Carolina for the day so we could go snow tubing! We met up with my cousin and his kids, and good times were had by all. The place was a very odd mix of the type of things you’d see at a miniature golf course (think giant gorilla statues and random fake dinosaur bones), plus a giant hill of manmade snow. It was really bizarre, but fun!

Sunday, January 28 – OFF: Rainy day plus no childcare equals a lazy day on the couch writing this post. Oh well, I got all my workouts in for the week!

LEAVE A COMMENT: What do you do when you need to adjust your schedule to accommodate extra days off? Do you try and squeeze your workouts in on the other days, or skip them?

I know that I haven’t written very much about our current foster care placement. As I mentioned previously, the 8-year old boy that came to live with us a few days after Thanksgiving has come from much different circumstances and has, likely, a much different future than that of our first placement. That makes things feel different, and in a lot of ways, it makes them hard to write about in a way that doesn’t overshare his story. It’s a tough position to be in, because I try to write in a way that is as authentic and “real” as possible. But sometimes, being “real” might mean a breach in confidentiality, and it’s a fine line to tread. I don’t want to share anything that paints our foster son (or any child) in a negative light, but I also don’t want to pretend like we became foster parents and just immediately knew what to do and every single day was easy and care free. That’s not been the case at all for the past few weeks.

There is an air about this case that is much different. The best way I can think to describe how it all feels is “heavy.” I think this is the part of foster care that we didn’t really think about, plan for, or expect, because you really can’t. You spend all of your time worrying in training about things like how to handle a kid punching a hole in your wall, or what it will feel like when they leave your home, or how best to interact with the biological family. You don’t think about what it feels like to hear your foster son’s heart break when it is time to hang up the phone with his mom. You don’t think about what you’ll do when you’re “doing everything right” according to what “the books” tell you to do but your placement is still not behaving. You don’t think about what it might feel like to go to sleep wondering if the little boy sleeping down the hall will remember you in a positive way, a negative way, or at all. You don’t think that you might wonder if he likes you at all.

We have had many wonderful, happy days with our current placement. We have also, especially recently, had plenty of very tough, exhausting, and depressing days. We wonder if we’re cut out to be parents at all, let alone foster parents. We think, rethink, and then overthink our rewards and consequences, practice how best to respond calmly and lovingly, and pray that tomorrow will be better. Sometimes, tomorrow is better. Sometimes, it is not.

No one has ever suggested that foster parenting is easy, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be. With that said, I think the things that feel hard are different than what I expected, and I sometimes find myself unsure of how to handle that. Some of our feelings stem from just the major shift that exists when you go from doing exactly what you want, whenever you want, to being responsible for another human life that is not quite so flexible. Parenting is a hard adjustment no matter how it happens. Some of it comes from feeling totally inadequate, helpless, and emotionally exhausted. And some of it comes from the fact that you know what? Kids, whether biological, foster, or adopted, aren’t always well behaved. Kids from hard places definitely are not, and they have very big and very valid feelings, worries, and thoughts that they cannot always express in ways that we find pleasant. For two people who are generally pretty calm and level-headed, that can be…well, unsettling.

That is not to say that every moment is bad or hard, because that is not even close to being true. Our current placement is sweet, thoughtful, smart, and kind. This weekend, he found out it was a neighbor’s birthday (we had no idea) and took it upon himself to color a picture for her as a birthday present. His giggle is contagious, his excitement about starting soccer soon (his very first ever organized sport) is endless, and it’s hard to turn down his requests for “just one more story.” We spent a day at the park with our first placement this past weekend, and they got along like two peas in a pod! We’ve been so blessed to remain close to our first placement and his family, and there will hopefully be many more park dates in the future. The relationships that we’re building are what keep us going at the tough times.

The best we can do day to day is savor the many wonderful moments and do our best to ride out the hard ones. We’re trying our hardest to give this kiddo the life he deserves for as long as he’s with us. We’re not perfect, but we’re present, and sometimes, it’s just about showing up.

race review

If you’re a regular reader around these parts, by now, you’re undoubtedly used to my race reports. You know, those seemingly endless race recaps where I tell you exactly how much I sweated and how many puppies I stopped to pet along the way? I decided that since the Prague Marathon is such an internationalRead more